From Japan to Egypt (Yabani Asly) (2017)

8 July 2019

From Japan To Egypt (Egypt: 'Yabani Asly', 2017) is an Egyptian film available on Netflix. Premise is an Egyptian travel agent guy marries a Japanese diplomat woman, they have two kids, and the couple split. The diplomat runs away back to Japan with the kids for several years. The Egyptian fights for custody of the kids, saying that he can give his kids as good a life in Egypt as his ex could in Japan.

This is a jarring film that I didn't care for. There was a lot of Egypt tourism promotion in this film, though it played off strangely, usually as child bribery ("[do this and] we'll go see the Pyramids", "[lie and] we can go to the zoo!"). The kids follow Japanese cultural practices at the beginning of the film to the point of stereotypes: wearing kimonos, repairing broken electronics or excelling in the classroom; though later Egyptian culture seems to drive them to gambling, begging and drug use.

Production seems simple and low budget. Acting and story vary between average and strange. IMDb lists this as a family film, but I don't think anyone would want to sit through this film: parent or child alike 3/10